Ramen Sanpachi now open - 1st Canadian shop of Hokkaido chain

Ramen Sanpachi has taken over the location formerly occupied by Royal Thai - 770 Bute next to Steamrollers. According to the press, this is their first North American location with the next shop opening in Edmonton in January.

The article said that Sanpanchi chose Vancouver due to the success of Santouka in the Vancouver market and our familiarity with ramen. They're planning on rolling out 20 shops on the continent over the next 5 years.They have 69 shops in Japan and already have a few set up in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea. It sounds like the Japanese economy is still in the doldrums, so we may see more ramen chains heading into foreign markets like Canada to grow their business.

They're in their soft opening phase so not all the menu items are available yet. I'm going to try it this weekend - not crowded yet but that won't last long once word gets out to the ramen aficionados around town.

Arigato Kentan for the info. Stopped in this afternoon for a bowl. Full menu will have gyoza, rice balls, different bento boxes / rice bowls, desserts, and other set menus. There's also a full array of booze available from beer, sake, cocktails, whiskey, and so on, which makes it different from the other ramen places.

There are only full bowls available for the moment; it looks like half-bowl options will come soon . You can have the regulars (shio, shoyu, miso, spicy, cha-shu, negi) or a couple I've not seen before here like corn and butter (the photo of the stick of butter in the menu looks like it's 2 tablespons) or yatai ( the most traditional ramen which is a mixture of shio and shoyu). I got the yatai. I was later told that yatai is similar to the ramen stand versions where the stock is limited and there's few veggies since there's little time to soften them up. It seemed counter-intuitive for a sit-down place, but it was delicious. Firm noodles, clean pork broth, with tender pieces of cha-shu. I got an extra order of the cha-shu to add to the bowl. Can't wait to try other bowls.

The description for the stir fried one implies that a spicy meat and vegetable stir fry is made first with the noodles and soup added after, I think. The description for the one I translated as "burned/seared shoyu ramen" is too tiny to read...the characters are too blurry when I blow it up...does say something about stir-fried veg as well, and possibly meat is cooked in shoyu first?

The third one on the first page is motogumi shoyu ramen, which best I can tell is just a name - my guess would be it's a different shoyu broth made with a darker shoyu - onions are added for sweetness it says as well.

The 4th on that page is just shio ramen; the 5th is old-fashioned ramen made with dashi broth.

Phew. I haven't been yet but all this menu reading is making me hungry...maybe a trip this weekend...will report back if I give it a go.

I popped in this evening for a quick bowl of ramen. They specialize in miso ramen, but chose to order the tonkotsu.

The broth was light and sweet (much lighter and sweeter than my local benchmark broth from Santuoka). I like my ramen noodles firm and toothsome so I ordered them "katame". The noodles had a nice spring but were perhaps a bit softer than I prefer (I like my ramen almost grainy to the tooth). It was all topped with some green onion, chasu, nori (a square propped up at the edge of the bowl) and strips of bamboo shoots (and an nicely cooked egg for a extra buck). They drizzled some "mayu" (charred garlic oil) which added a nice charred-caramelized note.

Overall a good bowl or ramen. It doesn't knock Santouka off the top spot IMO. Definitely a cut above Benkei and Kintaro.